My Other Blogs

With the breaking of the link between Family Tree Maker, my Gen- softwear, and Ancestry.Com, my main web site, I am at a loss. I am so used to changes in my tree, after some research, copying directly to the other, that I am in a bit of a panic. I have about a year to figure this out, but where to start.

However, along comes Genealogy Do-Over. Maybe that is my answer. Start all over. I am afraid I have some broken links on Ancestry and, thus, on my Family Tree Maker (2014) tree. I can't get the book until after the end of December. I hope it comes before we leave MI for FL.

Perhaps I am not related to William Howard Taft. Perhaps I don't have as many Mayflower links as I think. Maybe I have more. Maybe only one absolutely, for-sure ancestor fought in the Revolution. Maybe more.

Johanna and Reinhold Oehring had seven children.By 1880, only two were living. Those two were Louis and Theresa, known as Tracy.Louis and Tracy formed a strong bond, having
watched their parents bury 3 of their siblings.In 1883 and 1885, two more sons were born who lived.

Louis (my maternal grandfather) married first in 1873.Five years later, Tracy
married a Lutheran minister and had 3 children by him, Hilmar, Doris and
Naomi.Louis had two boys and 11 and 12 years
later two girls.Those seven cousins
were very close with many visits between Louis’ family in Detroit
and Tracy’s family in Kalamazoo, where her husband was pastor of a
large Lutheran church.There are even
studio photographs of the cousins together from the early years.

Tracy's Wedding picture.

Emanuel, Tracey,
Hilmar and Doris Mayer

3) Hilmar

2)Sidney and Lyman
Oehring with Hilmar and Doris Mayer

However, that is where the trail seemed to end.The youngest of Louis’ children, Eunice, my
mother, remembered her cousins and their good times but had no idea how or when
the families became estranged.

I kept checking for information
about the family while doing other genealogical tasks.Then, one day, an obituary showed up, for
Theresa.She had died at age 39.The Reverend had been left with three young
children.

In a year he remarried Mary Zink who had a son of her
own.That was also about the time Mother
says they stopped seeing their cousins.It appears that the new wife felt that it was better for the children to
sever ties with their late mother’s family in order to build a stronger blended
family.

This was where the trail ended again for many years.Then one day, Laura Lou, a granddaughter of
Louis, received a message from one Jennifer stating that they seemed to have
common ancestors; Johanna and Reinhold Oehring.The messages started flying.Jennifer was the great-granddaughter of Theresa, granddaughter of
Hilmar.Since both women wintered in
Florida there were meetings and exchange of copies of some precious photos
including one picture of the Oehring family home in which Louis and Tracy were raised.

Another link has been discovered, a great-great-grandchild of
Theresa’s, through Doris.Slowly but surely pieces are being
reassembled linking Louis and his beloved sister, Tracy, once again through the
descendants’ searching.

Over the last number of years I have scanned most of the really old photos I have. I was the end of a long line on my father's side when my grandmother died, then my father so really old photos from his side were the start of my collection. Then when we cleaned out my parents' house after they moved to Sr. apartments, all photos found around, here and there were collected into a bin or two and brought home with me. My 3 kids and 2 grandchildren are way too busy to go over old photos with me. I digi-scrapped some but I think spotlighting them here might be the best way to preserve what I know, suspect, or guess about some of those photos. I will try to do oldest first.

Memorial Stone of George Aldrich, one of my 8th great-grandfathers, located in Mendon, Mass.

"In Memory of

Circa 1603 GEORGE ALDRICH 1683

one of

Mendon's founding fathers

Settled Mendon 7th month 1663

Dedicated by the

National Aldrich Association

1997"

St. Dunstan's Anglican Church in Cranbrook, England.

January
12, 1591, Archbishop Whitgift appointed William Eddye to succeed as Vicar of
St. Dunstan Church at Cranbrook. He is my 7th great-grandfather born in England 1562 and died there, also, in 1616.

This is a photo taken in 2009 or so of the Newman Scarlett house, recorded to have been built by Newman in the 1700's on Maple St. in Tewksbury. It was just demolished in 2009.
There is a book (ISBN B0006R3G) Newman Scarlett of Tewksbury, Massachusetts and his Descendants
page 901
Scarlett, Newman, Tewksbury.Sergeant, in a Tewksbury co. of militia commanded by Lieut. Thomas Clark, Col. Green's regt., which marched on the alarm of April 19, 1775; service, 2 days.
He would have been one of the famous "Minute Men". He served again later in the war.

If you look at the vital records for Tewksbury Massachusetts under Births you will find under the FROST family a baptism record for a Newmen (spelled that way) adopted by Edmund Frost (jr). This is the nearest to a birth record anyone has been able to find in spite of many professional genealogists of his line searching in the US and in England, where he claimed to have been born.

This headstone in a cemetery in Indiana is Newman's grandson, also named Newman, but called "New". He is my 3rd great-grandfather.

This is Newman Scarlett (3) my 3rd great grandfather. The writing on the back is that of my great grandfather, Horace Greeley Scarlett, Jr, originally named Almon but renamed after his father died of a gunshot wound.